The Middleman

The Middleman is one of the NPCs from Ramsgate in Dauntless. The Middleman allows slayers to purchase and fuse Cells.

Journal Entry
"'Some things shouldn’t be negotiable. Like prices. Or promises. Or gravity.'

Mysterious, masked, and in the market for anything, the Middleman has long plied the people of Ramsgate with irresistible cell fusion opportunities, but little else is known about this enigmatic merchant. He is believed to hail from Ostia, the most advanced industrialized civilization in the Shattered Isles, where he learned the value of trading in anything and everything on the black market. He has operated in the city of Ramsgate for years, yet only the Regent claims to have ever seen his face.

'A treasure among the dross.'

Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding the Middleman—besides his true origin, appearance, gender, intentions, age, and so on—is how he is able to carry his stock with him wherever he goes. Some believe he doesn't — that he simply knows what people want to trade and so brings that with him as needed. Aethersmith Arkan Drew thinks the Middleman may have once been an aethersmith himself, one who now uses a form of aetheric dimensional compression to store his vast stock of cells and proprietary cell-fusion technology.

Whatever the truth is about his methods, the Middleman always seems to have just the cell you need. And sometimes even at the price you want."

Purchasing Cells
Slayers can buy a limited set of cells from The Middleman in exchange for or. The cells that are available rotate at each weekly reset but will always be of rank +1. The three cells that are currently available are listed in the table below. Currently each cell can be bought multiple times up to a limit depending on the cell.

Fusing Cells
The Middleman also allows slayers to exchange cells in order to obtain higher rarity cells. Slayers will have to wait a certain amount of time in order to complete the fusion, which can be expedited using.
 * Fusing 2 cells with the same perk will give a higher rarity cell with that same perk.
 * Fusing 2 cells of the same family (i.e. Power, Defense, etc.) will give a higher rarity cell from the same family.
 * Fusing 2 cells of different families will give a higher rarity cell of any family.
 * Fusing a +3 cell will give a different +3 cell of the same family.

Slayers have one free fusion slot unlocked from the start, and two more are purchasable from the Store for 500 for a total of three slots.

Trivia

 * The Middleman's right slot used to cost 1,000 . During The Middleman's 1-year anniversary celebration, the right slot was 50% cheaper, making it 500.
 * Previously, The Middleman's inventory would rotate each week. Every slayer in the game was offered the same items each week, and there was a small chance of there being a for sale for 100  or 160.
 * Since then it was fixed for a while stocking only +3 Ragehunter, +2 Overpower and +1 Iceborne, before beginning to rotate again without the chance.